Consortium
National Observatory of Athens, Greece
The National Observatory of Athens (NOA) was established in 1842. Today it is one of the largest research centers in Greece. The activities of NOA are organized in three institutes staffed with high quality scientific, research and technical personnel: the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing, the Institute of Environmental Research and Sustainable Development and the Geodynamics Institute. NOA carries out state-of-the-art basic and applied research in collaboration with other world-leading research centers. NOA’s research activities are focused on the terrestrial interior, the Earth’s atmosphere, the near-Earth’s space, the deep space and the astronomical Universe. Basic and applied research is conducted by using observational data from hundreds of ground based stations and several modern space probes. The Centre, with its rich scientific outcomes and activities, is linked to entrepreneurship, culture, education and the popularization of science. NOA offers critical social services, such as a daily monitoring of seismicity and issuing earthquake alerts to the Greek State Authorities on a 24/7 basis, weather forecasting, forest fires monitoring, ionospheric activity recording, space weather predictions for the European region, continuation of a 150 years long climatic dataset and operation of one of the largest European telescopes. It also provides the national gate to the European Space Agency.
The TechTIDE NOA team, operates a prototype system for the identification of TIDs (the Net-TIDE detection and warning system) that it is based on observations retried from synchronised DPS4D stations, exploiting HF skywave Doppler frequency and angle-of-arrival measurements, that provides an overview of the TID activity over Europe. The final version of the Net-TIDE prototype service will be released in 2017 (https://sites.google.com/site/ spsionosphere/).
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Germany
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) is the national aeronautics and space research centre of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its extensive research and development work in aeronautics, space, energy, transport and security is integrated into national and international cooperative ventures. In addition to its own research, as Germany’s space agency, DLR has been given responsibility by the federal government for the planning and implementation of the German space programme. DLR is also the umbrella organisation for the nation’s largest project execution organisation.
DLR is leading workpackages 1 and 7. Workpackage 1 deals with the generation and documentation of user requirements and workpackage 7 TechTIDE with the dissemination and exploitation.
Being coordinator of the Ionosphere Expert Service Center in the SSA space weather network, DLR maintains a broad knowledge about the activities there. Furthermore, DLR operates the Ionosphere Monitoring and Prediction Center (IMPC, http://impc.dlr.de ), which is the successor of the widely known Space Weather Application Center – Ionosphere (SWACI). With SWACI and IMPC DLR has more than 15 years experience in the operation of near real-time services for ionospheric weather.
DLR contributes to TechTIDE with its knowledge on the SSA space weather network requirements and on the requirements to the IMPC. TechTIDE will also benefit from DLR’s close contact to users of the SSA space weather network and IMPC.
Additionally, DLR is contributing to workpackages 2, 3 and 5 with its scientific expertise in monitoring and forecasting the state of the ionosphere. In the recent years, DLR generated an enhanced knowledge on monitoring and analysing large scale travelling ionospheric disturbances (LSTIDs) which will be contributed to TechTIDE.
Ustav Fyziky Atmosfery AV RS, Czech Republic
The Institute of Atmospheric Physics AS CR (IAP) was established in 1964 as a continuation of the former Laboratory for Meteorology of the Geophysical Institute. The main research focus was on the processes taking place in the troposphere. In 1994, the former Ionospheric Dept. of the Geophysical Institute joined the IAP, thereby expanding the research domain. Recently the principal activity of the IAP is scientific research of the Earth’s whole atmosphere from the boundary layer to the magnetosphere and the exploration of its space environment, monitoring and special measurements, their processing and transfer into worldwide data networks, and the development of special instruments. The IAP acquires processes and disseminates scientific information and issues scientific publications (monographs, journals, proceedings, etc.). It provides scientific assessments, professional opinions and recommendations, consulting and advisory services. In cooperation with universities, the IAP carries out doctoral study programs and provides training for young scientists. Within the scope of its activity, the IAP promotes international cooperation, including the organization of joint research projects with foreign partners, participation in exchange programmes for scientists and the exchange of scientific information. The IAP organises scientific meetings, conferences and seminars at the national and international levels and provides the infrastructure for research. To realize the complex atmospheric research the IAP joints together five observatories: three meteorological observatories (one of them, the observatory Milesovka is in operation for more than 110 years), Pruhonice ionospheric observatory, which is in operation since 1958, and one satellite telemetry station) and operates network of microbarographs and five CDSS networks. IAP also operates mirroring facility of the World Digisonde Database (DIDBase), and HPC facility Amalka.
The IAP leads WP3. Its main objective is to develop algorithms for the verification of TID identification results and to provide a confidence score for the TID characteristics. The general idea is to organize a comparison of the results obtained with the different methodologies described in WP2, considering current geospace and atmospheric conditions. Therefore, we need to define proxies that specify the TID drivers in the solar wind, the magnetosphere, and the lower atmosphere. This will be based on the study of the climatological behaviour of TIDs in respect to potential proxies and on event-based analysis. The IAP will also contribute to the WP2, WP7 and WP8 activities.
Institut Royal Meteorologique de Belgique, Belgium
The Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) founded in 1833, is the Belgium’s leading research and services centre for meteorology and climatology, with also long-time observation and research traditions in geophysics, including ionospheric and space physics, atmospheric physics, and geomagnetism. The institute employs about two hundred people working in six departments at two locations in Belgium: Brussels and Dourbes. The RMI Ionosphere and Space Weather (ISW) section (http://ionosphere.meteo.be/) caries out regular ionospheric and space observations by means of an own vertical incidence sounder (digital ionosonde, see http://digisonde.oma.be), GNSS signal receivers located in Belgium, and a cosmic ray detector. The ISW research activities are currently focused on the ionospheric disturbances and their effects on the technological systems dependent on radio wave propagation. The RMI research expertise, broad experience, and modern infrastructure are well recognised and the institute is regularly being involved in various international projects sponsored by the EC, ESA, GJU, and NATO.
The RMI team will be responsible for timely provision of data from the Dourbes digital sounder (DB049), as well as GNSS data from the local receivers (if needed).
The team will contribute to WP2, WP3, and WP7 as follows: Design and implementation of improvements of the TID identification and warning method based on the Dourbes-Ebro and Dourbes-Juliusruh experiments (2.1, 2.2), Proxies definition methodology (3.1), Ionospheric background specification (3.2), Development of methodology and algorithms for verification (3.4), Support the organization and implementation of the users networking meeting (7.4-7.6) and the conclusion of SLAs (7.7).
The team has experience in ionosphere/space weather data processing and analysis, developing real-time ionospheric and geomagnetic activity monitoring and specification, etc. It has been actively involved in the Net-TIDE research and operational activities, thus developing the expertise needed for fulfilling the tasks within the TechTIDE project.
Observatorio del Ebro Fundacion, Spain
The Observatori de l’Ebre (OE)is a Research Institute founded in 1904 to study the Sun-Earth relationships. OE is a “non-profit” Organization belonging to the Ramon Llull University (URL) as University Institute and it has also a relationship with Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Currently OE carries out two research lines: Geomagnetism and Aeronomy and Climate Change; being active (with national and international based projects of research and development) in both of them. The Geomagnetic and Aeronomy team contribute to projects for space weather specification, forecasting and identification of ionospheric irregularities, it is skilled in investigating the variability of the Earth’s ionosphere caused by solar/geomagnetic activity and meteorological effects, and in developing prediction climate ionospheric models and forecasting models of ionospheric disturbance, bounded to the solar activity and to the Interplanetary Magnetic Field conditions. The team also cares the monitoring and analysis of the variability of the Earth’s ionosphere and geomagnetic field being significant data contributor to international databases as GIRO and INTERMAGNET, making data, historical and real-time, standardized and available to the near-space community for their research, applications and modelling purposes. OE also contributes to the International Reference Ionosphere model (IRI) since 2006. OE chairs currently the IRI Working Group and have contributed to develop the last two releases IRI-2012 and IRI-2016. In addition to these aspects, OE manages several geophysical observatories in Spain and in the Antarctic Spanish Base ensuring the continuity and reliability of their observations, with more than a hundred years of history.
In the TechTIDE project, the OE leads work package 2 which is devoted to release the algorithms for the Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs) identification and the resulting products for implementation in the TechTIDE warning system. Within WP2, the OE contributes with the detection, in near real time, of Large Scale TIDs through the interferometry TID indentification method. OE is also involved in work package 3 concerning the investigation of TID drivers and working package 7 devoted to dissemination, exploitation and communication activities.
The team of the OE involved in TechTIDE contribute to projects for space weather specification, forecasting and identification of ionospheric irregularities, and it is skilled in investing the variability of the Earth’s ionosphere caused by solar/geomagnetic activity and meteorological effects as well as in developing prediction climatologic ionospheric models and forecasting models of ionospheric disturbance, bounded to the solar activity and to the Interplanetary Magnetic Field conditions. The team also cares the monitoring and analysis of the variability of the Earth’s ionosphere and geomagnetic field being significant data contributor to international databases as GIRO and INTERMAGNET, making data, historical and real-time, standardized and available to the near-space community for their research, applications and modelling purposes. OE contribute investigating the climate of the upper atmosphere specially on atmospheric waves and its impact on the ionosphere as well as to the International Reference Ionosphere model (IRI) since 2006 and currently OE chairs the IRI Working Group and have contributed to develop its lasts versions IRI-2012 and 2016.
Borealis Global Designs Ltd., Bulgaria
The Borealis Global Design Ltd. (BGD) is a consulting company established in 2015 in Varna, Bulgaria, to provide highly specialized expertise relevant to detection, evaluation, and mitigation of the ionospheric effects on the navigational and geolocation systems that employ trans-ionospheric signal propagation, including systems for high frequency geolocation and high accuracy real-time GNSS navigation.
BGD will be responsible for development and operational management of the TID RealTimer, Explorer and Database (TID-RED) software suite for detection and evaluation of the TID events based on data from the TechTIDE’s ground-based network of synchronised DPS4D ionospheric sounders (method 2.1 and 2.2). BGD will provide technical support and enhancements of TID-RED algorithms for TechTIDE in response to WP5 outcomes (2.3) and contribute to the TID activity characterization using Net-TIDE results (3.5) and functional specifications of the test-bed (4.1).
Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Rostock University, Germany
The Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics (L-IAP) has been founded in 1992 and is member of the research association "Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (WGL)". The institute is located near the Baltic Sea resort Kühlungsborn and owns a separate site on the island Rügen, close to Juliusruh. In addition IAP is a major partner of the ALOMAR observatory in northern Norway. As associated institute of the University Rostock it is part of the teaching programme in physics. A total of about 90 persons is employed at IAP. The institute realizes an equal-opportunity and family-friendly human resource policy and is certified with the audit "berufundfamilie" ("career and family").
The Leibniz-Institute is one of the German main centers for Middle Atmosphere research and operates active cooperations with several international research organizations. The most important scientific topics at IAP are: (i) exploration of the mesosphere and lower atmosphere, (ii) coupling of atmospheric layers, (iii) long-term changes in the middle atmosphere.
L-IAP contributes to WP2 and WP5. Besides a MF- and a Meteor-Radar the field station of the L-IAP in Juliusruh/Ruegen operates a Digisonde as a main reception station within the TechTIDE project.
With ionosondes located in Juliusruh the L-IAP has experiences of 60 years of continuous ionospheric measurements of high quality and is/was contributing to several space weather and ionospheric related projects.
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – BarcelonaTech (UPC) is a public institution dedicated to higher education and research, specialised in the fields of engineering, architecture and science. It is well positioned as a university of research and innovation with a high degree of knowledge transfer and experience, and it valorises these assets spin-offs, patents and close involvement with business.
Currently, UPC involves 42 Departments, 10 Research Institutes and 197 Research Groups (http://www.gage.upc.edu), with 2,431 teaching and research staff members, and 1,469 administrative and service staff members. About 31.000 students are taking a bachelor or master degree at the UPC and over 2,600 doctoral students are opting for one of a range of academic and professional pathways. The course offerings for the 2013 master degrees and 51 doctoral programmes. The master degrees are distinguished by the specialised, multidisciplinary and international training they provide. A total of 26 master degrees are taught entirely in English. The UPC is also the European university with the most Erasmus Mundus programmes: 13 master degrees and 7 doctoral programmes.
gAGE/UPC is a Research Group of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in Barcelona, Spain, created in 1987. This university research group has an extensive experience in state of the art Ionospheric Models, Mapping Functions, Electron Density Profiles form RO, Data Analysis, TEC Variability and GNSS performance analysis. Also they have a wide experience in GNSS navigation, having invented the Fast-PPP concept which is technique for High accuracy navigation that relies in an accurate modelling of the ionospheric delays to accelerate the filter convergence.
gAGE/UPC is producing now the more precise Ionospheric Models at global scale based on GPS observations. They have developed a CPF with the capability of separating the different effects on actual GPS signals with accuracies at the level of 1cm. Indeed, the ionospheric model running in the CPF produce ionospheric determinations at the level of 1/2 TECU (8 cm L1 delay) or better, Rovira-García et al (2014). These values are several times more accurate than the IGS GIMs and provide a valuable source of ionospheric determinations to assess the GNSS ionospheric models.
They have introduced the separability hypothesis for the Abel inversion technique, which improves the estimation of the electron density profiles and have conducted several studies on the use of RO data to estimate 3D iono models, having a large experience in data assimilation combining different sources of data (ground receivers, RO, ionosondes).
They have published large number of papers in peer reviewed journals, proving their capability to perform a real time reconstruction of three-dimensional electronic distribution with different approaches (voxel models, improved Abel transform) and data sources.
This group has generated the last Ionosphere Expert Team Scenarios for EGNOS Ionosphere assessment. In the context of these EGNOS ionosphere studies, gAGE/UPC has developed the ionospheric activity index AATR able to identify perturbed ionospheric conditions degrading the SBAS system Performances. This index has been chosen as the metric to characterise the ionosphere operational conditions in the frame of EGNOS activities.
Moreover they are conducting studies on polar and equatorial scintillation for ESA and improving the modelling of short and long term characteristics of ionospheric disturbances during active years of the solar cycle.
This knowledge on ionospheric modelling for GNSS is of great interest in this project in order to consolidate the modelling and to do the validations, and also to see the ionospheric performance effects on GNSS users.
European Satellite Services Provider
The European Satellite Services Provider (ESSP) is a dynamic company specialized in the operations and service provision of safety-critical navigation satellite systems.
Its ESSP’s shareholders are 7 key European Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs): ENAIRE, DFS, DSNA, ENAV, NATS, NAV Portugal and Skyguide.
On 2010, the French National Supervisory Authority (NSA) granted to the ESSP a pan-European Certification of Air Navigation Service Provider, according to the Single European Sky Regulation 2096/2005. This Certification delivered by European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) allows ESSP to provide Navigation Services to all European airspace users.
Our core activity is the operation and service provision of EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System) Safety of Life (SoL) Service compliant with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) SBAS standards, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System. The EGNOS Service Provision contract is funded by the European Union and managed through the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) Agency (GSA), with a clear mandate to help foster the use of satellite navigation within Europe and particularly in the domain of aviation.
ESSP, as EGNOS operator and services provider, is a GNSS key player in aviation in Europe. It has well-balanced sources of expertise and knowledge in GNSS, SBAS system operations, engineering and management, GNSS performance assessment, navigation services provision, safety issues, and management of diverse GNSS implementation projects in different sectors, among them maritime.
In parallel, ESSP accrues wide know-how and background in certification and standardization activities as well as in GNSS stakeholders’ and users’ management and interfacing and GNSS services adoption in the different user domains (mainly aviation).
ESSP leads WP6 and contributes to WP1, WP5 and WP7. The team who will work in TechTIDE has a long experience in EGNOS performance monitoring and analysis having performed studies on the effects of space weather in GPS and EGNOS. The TechTIDE ESSP team is used to specification of requirements for GPS and EGNOS performance and forecasting tools including assessment of macromodels for EGNOS performance forecasting. ESSP operates the EGNOS NOTAM tool which provides warnings to EGNOS users based on performance prediction based on macromodels. ESSP is also used to set SLA with aviation stakeholders prior to the use of EGNOS addressing applicable regulatory framework, the definition of the services to be given and the associated services evolution roadmaps.
South Africa National Space Agency, South Africa
The South Africa National Space Agency (SANSA) was established to promote the use of space and cooperation in space-related activities while fostering research in space science, advancing scientific engineering through the development of human capital and provide support to industrial development in space technologies. The Space Science Programme (one of 6 core programmes within SANSA) leads multi-disciplinary space science research and applications. Key functions include fundamental and applied space science research, the support of space facilitated science through data acquisition, the coordination and administration of scientific data, and the provision of space weather and magnetic technology products and services on a commercial and private basis. Through the Space Science Programme, SANSA contributes to the worldwide network of magnetic observatories responsible for monitoring the Earth’s magnetic field, and participates in global scientific projects. The programme also provides leadership in post-graduate student training as well as providing science advancement, public engagement, and learner and educator support with STEM subjects.
SANSA’s research activities are focused in the areas of ionospheric characterisation and modelling, plasma physics, geomagnetism, middle and upper atmosphere, space weather research and radiation belt studies. Through SANSA’s space weather centre (a regional warning centre of the International Space Environment Service (ISES)) space weather services such as frequency predictions and space weather indices for radio communication and electric power industry are provided.
Under the TechTIDE project SANSA is going to contribute towards the provision of South African ionosonde and GNSS RINEX data as well the study of TIDs during quiet and disturbed conditions and their impact on aerospace and ground systems (i.e. WP 2, WP3, WP 5).
Watermann Juergen Friedrich Wilhelm, France
Watermann Juergen Friedrich Wilhelm (JFWCONSULT) is a micro-enterprise specialising in scientific and technical consulting to European national and international agencies, institutions and enterprises active in the space research and engineering sector. It provides consulting services in basic and applied space physics with emphasis on the transition of scientific and technical research results to pre-operational and operational space weather services and products. jfwConsult was founded in April 2010 by Dr Jurgen Watermann, a physicist with more than 25 years of experience in basic and applied space research acquired at various first-class laboratories in Europe and North America. As of today Dr Watermann is owner and general manager of jfwConsult.
jfwConsult contributes to WP1 (specifically to the assessment of users’ requirements) and to WP3 (primarily to interhemispheric circulation studies).
Frederick University, Cyprus
Frederick University (FU) is an energetic and vibrant private university operating in the Republic of Cyprus. Despite the recent (2007) establishment, the organisation has a long history of more than 50 years in higher education. In this period, FU has become established in the society and the academic community as a modern university offering teaching and research work of the highest caliber. Since its establishment, FU managed to achieve significant growth, both in terms of student population, faculty members, and academic infrastructure. FU employs about 250 (fte) faculty, with 3500 students enrolled annually on average and operates from two campuses. FU is recognized as the university that offers novel and innovative programs of study that address societal needs and, primarily, as the university that exhibits high social sensitivity and responsibility. The University, offers a broad range of academic programs of study in the areas of Science, Engineering, Business, Arts, Architecture, Media, Humanities, Health, and Education.
FU’s academic staff, either organized in multidisciplinary teams or individually, are involved in a wide range of research, educational and cultural activities relevant to their specializations. The research initiatives and activities that are being carried out by its faculty, place the University among the most successful organizations in Cyprus with respect to the level of financial support received for projects from external sources through competitive national and European programs, including LLP, Erassmus+, Life, FP7 and from Regional Funds. Besides the self-funded creative and other projects, the University staff has implemented or currently running more than a hundred R&D and consulting projects, the majority of which coordinated by FU faculty and researchers.
Over the last ten years, FU-IRG (Frederick University Ionospheric Research Group) has installed an array of ionospheric monitoring instruments and has completed 7 nationally funded projects such as CIFS (Cyprus Ionospheric Forecasting service) which resulted in near real-time operation and short-term forecasting service for monitoring the upper atmosphere over Eastern Mediterranean. It has also established collaborations with well-known universities/ research institutions (Stanford University USA, Nottingham University UK, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), University of Massachusetts Lowell etc).
The group will be involved in experiments with coordinated operation between Athens and Nicosia Digisondes and integration of DOP files into the TechTIDE database (2.1). It will also contribute to the research in WP3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.5) primarily by developing a TID identification methodology based on a combination of the Height Time Intensity technique (HTI) and spectral analysis based on digisonde ionograms.
German Federal Police, Germany
The German Federal Police (GFP) is a specialised force responsible for border protection, railway policing and aviation security.
The federal structure of the Federal Republic of Germany gives the 16 states (Länder) the authority to maintain their own police forces within their territory, along with the right to pass legislation and exercise police authority. At the same time, the Basic Law provides for originary federal authority in central areas of law enforcement.
Due to this division of authority, Germany has 16 state police forces and two federal law enforcement agencies, one of which is the Federal Police.
The Federal Police carry out a wide variety of law enforcement tasks, in particular border protection, railway policing and aviation security, as assigned by Germany’s Basic Law and federal law, including the Act on the Federal Police, the Residence Act, the Asylum Procedure Act, and the Act on Aviation Security.
With its approximately 40,000 staff, including more than 30,000 highly trained law enforcement officers, the Federal Police is an extremely effective police service which plays an important role in maintaining internal security in the Federal Republic of Germany and Europe.
GFP designs and implements on ground demonstrations using their HF direction finding antennas to determine the source of transmissions under quiet and disturbed ionospheric conditions. GFP contributes in the evaluation of demonstration results and in the design of the final T-FORS services, providing solutions for innovation development. GFP also develops all necessary actions to strengthen industrial innovation, including investment in key technologies (T-FORS users’ tailored products), support for small businesses (open access to data, services and software codes), address major social concerns, such as security from space for civil protection, ensure technological breakthroughs are developed into viable products with real commercial potential - by building partnerships with industry and governments.
One of the of Federal Police law enforcement tasks is to support the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an intelligence service for homeland affairs with radio reconnaissance. Federal Police operates a radio monitor centre to intercept relevant radio telegrams in various frequency ranges including the HF range. In HF range there are several direction finding antennas in use, to determine the source of the transmitter. Result of the task is to report an overview of relevant emissions and radio links. Due to this task space weather and ionospheric disturbances have an impact on the daily work.